A couple of brilliant tips there but i think with the insta-death people are experiencing 'adjusting how they play' is absolutely futile. As you mentioned its much easier and a better use of 'play-time' to find a better lobby.

What i don't understand is why i can load up any COD other than BO2 and Ghosts, PS3 or Xbox and have a 'normal' experience outside of the odd player who is difficult to kill or a distant lobby.

Am i right in saying that BO2 and Ghosts is giving me the same experience except that Ghosts visually smooths/covers it up better aswell as the better hit detection and either lower player hp or faster ttk than BO2, giving me the insta-death experience.

Im still positive that they should raise the default hp in Ghosts to ease the insta-death feel. This would feel better for the lower skill players and also demand constant precision from the higher skilled players. With Ghosts excellent hit detection it shouldn't be a problem. Im finding that when im experiencing insta-death, any old player from 0.2 to 6.0 kd can drop me in a flash and their aim can be terribly wild.

But anyway, is matchmaking at fault ? How does it measure ? Solely on ping ? Couldn't it measure for packetloss and jitter ? With all the variables such as line faults etc, shouldn't matchmaking take this into account ? Im guessing it measures all players from point A to B, but when players are connected to each other they are routed via different or extra hops that matchmaking could not meaure at that moment. Could they not expand to measure the lobby's network it has created ?

Im lost, i can be connected to players in the same area, even on the same ISP and still appear to be out of sync.

Another weird one, i went 46-1 against sub 1 kd players and in the next match with absolutely no changes to the team line-ups or players, i experienced the insta-death thing and struggled to kill them the entire match (they didn't suddenly 'get better' because they got whooped, im pretty much sure they weren't even aware). I remember this happening all the way back to COD4, it was as ovious as if a switch had been flicked. Its things like this that could lead you to believe in the conspiracies.

that was sniperfrog.exe being activated. that random exe that causes the host to change to balance out the match so no one team always gets the best game every match. j/k then again maybe not.

What changed was the host that was selected that match. The first game your team had the better host, the second game a different host was chosen and was not as good as the first. the game does not seem to stay with the same host match too match, when it goes back to lobby it seems to choose a new one each match.

Yea im spewing a bit without considering the possibilities. That oviously could of been the case. But im sure over the years a player in my party has kept host and we still experienced this. I guess no way of knowing for sure.

Nope, no real way to know for sure since it does not tell you who host is each match. You might think they were host because they may have been a few times but that match it may have switched for one reason or another.

There are some here that have spoken with the devs and heard it directly from them as to what the game engine is like now. That is is not the original anymore, that it is a heavily modified engine and thus no longer the same. It has been tweaked and modified several times. Just not an entire new engine wrote from scratch. The netcode has not really changed in general since the very first online fps games ever made. It has been tweaked over time but not really ever completely rewritten to something brand new.

I find it somewhat humorous and sad that you claim to have vast knowledge of games and how they work, yet you haven't got a clue what the "engine" is.

Protip: The engine is all the software required to code the game, as in make it.

Anyways, why are we using decades old technology for online multiplayer? We should have been on dedicated servers years ago. Host selection is by far the biggest issue and has been for quite some time, they should gather more data and develop better host records for players if we're going to remain in the stone age.

Actually that is not entirely true, you can make many parts of the game outside of the engine itself. The engine is what runs the codes and all the different parts to make the game do what it does. So no you do not need the engine itself to make the game only to run it. I can develop and make 3d character models of players, weapons, equipment, everything you see in the world outside of the game engine itself. And use another software suite to do all the sound editing, then use another suite to write the code for how they work and then import all of that to a game engine and change the triggers and other variables to make the game work how i want. You don't have to make it all from the very same singular program. In truth most devs usually use more than one software suite when making a game. The engine is nothing more than what runs it all once it is compiled together in a common location of files.

The engine in a car does not make the car it only powers the car to let it move. You can have a boat with out an engine and it is still a boat. A plane with out an engine and it still a plane. The game engine is just one many parts needed to make the game work.

Dedicates servers do not solve all the problems that most people like to claim or think or believe. They never have and never will. Even BF which uses dedicated servers still has lag problems, it still has hit detection problems, you can still see rubberbanding and teleporting. All dedicated servers do is eliminate host migration, and lower the chances of stat padding from dashboarding.

They really cant gather that data for a hosts performance may change game to game, day to day depending upon their internal and external network and the internet itself. I can easily host 4v4 games with my connection but cannot a 6v6. Yet it has chosen me as host in 6v6 matches before. Which leads to laggy games for other players.

IW/3arc would both have to completely rewrite the code to use dedicated servers and provide server browsers for anyone to see any real benefit. With out the server browser being on dedicated servers could actually end up worse than listen servers if too far away from the server farm.

A car, boat, or plane engine is nothing like an engine for a game. Components are made outside the engine yet the engine is where it all comes together, somewhat like you said. The engine must first be developed in order to make the game, it provides the tools to actually code the game. I wish I could find the link from Bungie.net, they explained the (lol) reach engine in depth and to be quite honest that's how came to know what the engine does.

Dedicated servers would place the problems more on the player connection and not the netcode. They should have had a large server farm years ago after the success of CoD 4, yes they're expensive to set up and maintain but the the foundation would have been made. Dedicated servers would also allow developers a stable data pool and they could develop better algorithms for possible listen servers. The Xbone is currently unplayable do to a tiny population and poor host selection for the listen servers, that's what happens when you don't take the time to actually develop algorithms for host selection.

Server browsers are well and good but options for limiting your search area would be much better. Setting the min/max would yield a much faster result.

Yes they could have but they are out for money not player happiness overall. so they were not going to waste the initial start up fee's just to make a few players happier when most did not know any difference on consoles back during those times.

I do agree that if done properly dedi's can solve many problems; but not all of them the game has. But I doubt until the game is made only for x1 and using the cloud servers will there ever really be any improvement in the games performance for players online. 3arc/IW are just not going to do it for the older consoles, it is not worth it to them from a monetary standpoint. So any wish/desire/demand/request for it will basically fall on deaf ears for the 360 will be phased out in a few years like the original xbox was and not supported.

though players are still buying games for it I bet more game developers will begin to only develop their game for the next console by next year. I actually will be surprised if there is even a CoD for 2015 on the 360 developed.

Min/max options are a very good thing but if the player does not understand them can lead to hard to find games at times. Which is why a server browser is needed as well so players can see what is available with what players and then make a choice to connect or not.

Overall I agree with what you said in this post compared to the how much we have but heads in the past.. go figure.. had to happen at one point eh?